Products useful for determining or monitoring the condition of assets, including but not limited to equipment and processes, most often perform this surveillance function by evaluating signal or data values obtained during asset operation.
One means for determining or monitoring the condition of an asset involves estimating expected data values and comparing the estimated data values to current data values obtained from the asset. When the estimated data values characterize the desired or expected operation of the asset, a disagreement between the estimated data values and the current data values provides a sensitive and reliable indication of an asset fault condition and can further provide an indication of the particular cause of the asset fault.
Unfortunately, determining estimated data values that accurately characterize the desired or expected operation of an asset has proven to be a difficult or overly expensive problem for many types of assets thereby inhibiting the practical applications of products for determining or monitoring the condition of most assets.
Another shortcoming of the known prior-art is an inability to monitor the condition of assets using signal or data values whose availability changes dynamically during monitoring, such as signal or data sets having sometimes missing or incomplete values and signal or data sets whose contents change as asset operating environments are modified by owners or operators.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for an asset surveillance method and system that overcomes the significant shortcomings of the known prior-art as delineated hereinabove.